How to Install Python 3.9 on Amazon Linux 2

    By 3 Mins Read

    Python is a powerful programming language. It is very friendly and easy to learn. During the latest update of this article, Python 3.9.16 (of the Python 3.9 series) latest stable version is available to download and install.

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    This tutorial will help you to install Python 3.9 on Amazon Linux systems.

    Prerequisites

    Installing Python from the source code requires a GCC compiler. So must have installed the required development libraries first.

    Open a terminal on your system and install the prerequisites for Python:

    sudo yum install gcc openssl-devel bzip2-devel libffi-devel

    Step 1 – Download Python 3.9

    Visit Python’s official download page and download the required Python on your system. Alternatively, You can use the following command to download Python 3.9 on a local machine.

    cd /opt 
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.9.16/Python-3.9.16.tgz

    After the download is finished, extract the archive file.

    sudo tar xzf Python-3.9.16.tgz

    Step 2 – Install Python 3.9

    Switch to the extracted directory with the cd command. Then use the ./configure script to prepare the source code. After that, you can compile and install it with the make command. Below set of commands to compile Python 3.9 from the source code and install using the altinstall command.

    cd Python-3.9.16 
sudo ./configure --enable-optimizations 
sudo make altinstall

    make altinstall is used to prevent replacing the default python binary file /usr/bin/python.

    Now remove the downloaded source archive file from your system

    sudo rm -f /opt/Python-3.9.16.tgz

    Step 3 – Check Python Version

    The Python 3.9 binary is installed under /usr/local/bin directory. As we have not overwritten the current Python version, you need to run Python 3.9 command as follows:

    python3.9 -V 

Python 3.9.16

    Step 4 – Create Python Virtual Environment

    Python provides to create an isolated environment for the applications. Where you can create an environment directory with a specific Python version. This will contain application-specific packages.

    Use the following command to create an environment directory:

    python3.9 -m venv env

    The above command will create a directory “env” in the current directory containing all the required files for the isolated environment.

    Every time you need to make changes in the environment, Use the below command to activate it.

    source env/bin/activate

    After activating the environment, you can work with your application.

    Once your work is finished, use the following command to deactivate the Python environment.

    deactivate

    Conclusion

    In this tutorial, you have learned to install Python 3.9 on Amazon Linux using source code.

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    4 Comments

    1. Paul Whipp on

      This is a good clear guide but on Amazon Linux, Python is build without ssl using this method which results in errors when trying to use pip etc.

      Reply
    2. d00m on

      sudo yum install sqlite-devel
      cd Python-3.9.6
      sudo ./configure –enable-optimizations –enable-loadable-sqlite-extensions
      sudo make altinstall

      Reply
    3. Max on

      Hey Rahul, thanks for the article. It worked for me, but when I tried to start a simple django app I got

      …
      File “/usr/local/lib/python3.9/sqlite3/__init__.py”, line 23, in
      from sqlite3.dbapi2 import *
      File “/usr/local/lib/python3.9/sqlite3/dbapi2.py”, line 27, in
      from _sqlite3 import *
      ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘_sqlite3’

      Looks like the latest django version requires sqlite 3.9, but in the Linux 2 only 3.7 installed. Do you know how to fix it?

      Reply

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